Including the Excluded

In the gospel of Mark, we read the story of a woman and her daughter and the story of a deaf man who has a speech impediment. Each story has its own distinctive plot and dialogue. Mark’s gospel says that the Syrophoenician woman left her ailing child at home and ventured out on her own to find Jesus. For a woman to be traveling alone, and for a Gentile woman to be initiating a conversation with a Jewish man, took a lot of nerve. Yet her love for her suffering daughter was profound. She was both hopeful and desperate for help and in her hope and desperation, she risked taking action. She packed up and went out looking for Jesus.

Evidently Jesus’ long range evangelism plan is to go first to the Jews and then later to the Gentiles. I understand that Jesus does not want to dilute his mission. But does he have to use the harsh language and call the woman a dog? But this woman with a clear sense of her child’s need and her desire to see that need met were not fazed by Jesus’ sharp remarks. This woman is determined and desperate. She will not be turned aside. She does not back down. She takes Jesus’ demeaning words and tosses them back on behalf of her daughter. She says: “Yes, Children get fed before the dogs, but the dogs get to eat the children’s crumbs, even the pets get the scraps that fall from their master’s table”. She simply and straightforwardly got down on her knees before him and said, “Lord, help me.”

The second healing story couldn’t be more different. A man is brought to Jesus. The crowd begs Jesus to lay his hands on the man and heal him. If you read the text carefully one of the things that stands out most is found in the 32nd verse: “They brought to Jesus a deaf man and they begged Jesus to lay his hand on him.” The nameless members of the crowd “they” play a prominent role in this healing story. They bring the deaf man to Jesus in the first place and after the healing they refuse to observe the command to keep silent. They cannot keep silent about the marvelous good news of God’s pure grace. In this second story the crowd becomes the model for the church as those who fervently spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Did you notice that? It wasn’t the man’s faith that led Jesus to act; rather it was the faith of the nameless “they” had labored so hard to bring him before Jesus. And he was healed. The healing comes to the deaf man as a completely free gift of grace. He is healed not because he deserves healing but because Christ had compassion for him and the crowd brought the deaf man to Jesus. By bringing the man to Jesus the crowd acted in faith and he was healed. If they had not acted, if they had kept silent, then this poor man would have never met Jesus. But he was healed and even Jesus himself couldn’t keep the crowd from proclaiming Christ.

The story makes us to think of who we are. And the gospel makes it quite clear. You and I may be deaf and thus unable to sound who we are to those we live with or meet. We may be so plugged up with self-importance or self-interest that the sound of who we really are cannot get through. Like a stopped-up flute we cannot sound a true tone. We need to be opened up. We need to be healed. Isaiah announces that we need not be afraid. Our God is here and will do it. God’s word can be placed in our ears, and blockage melts away at his touch.

We are the deaf ones and the voiceless ones who prefer not to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters, and who prefer not to speak up for those who have no voice. But when this Word touches us, he indeed does all things well. We hear and we speak and we do, and the Word is no longer bound up tight in our locked-up lives.“Ephphatha!’(It’s a great Aramaic word, isn’t it? It rolls right off the tongue. With this word and this touch, this miracle story opens us up to move into meaning that is beyond the event itself. As we move deeper into Jesus’ story in the coming weeks, we shall encounter disciples and religious leaders and crowds struggling with spiritual hearing and sight.“Ephphtha”! Be opened. Open to God, to one another, to strangers, and neighbors. Open to the orphan and the widow, to the Syrophoenicians and people of the Decapolis in our midst—the “those people” we have excluded for so long. Someone is waiting for the good news today. Someone is waiting for us. Go then, and bring the good news to your homes, to your friends, and to your neighbors. Ephphtha! Be opened. Where the Spirit of Jesus and where the word of ‘ephphtha’, there is healing and new life.